A20- Is "Lord" (Kyrios) the name of God in the Greek Scriptures ?
The papyrus P52 is dated 125 CE, and contains the verse of John 18:31-33. Owing to the shape of this piece of sheet (red part) it is possible to reconstruct the whole codex to which it belonged (around 130 pages of 18 lines per page with an average of 33 characters per line, and 29/30 on the verso).
OI.IOUDAOI.HMEIN.OUK.EXESTIN.APOKTEINAI
OUDENA. INA.O.LOGOS.TOU.IHSOU.PLHRWQE.ON.EI
PEN.SHMAINWN.POIW.QANATW.HMELLEN.APO
QNHSKEIN.ISHLQEN.OUN.PALIN.EIS.TO.PRAITW
RION.O.PILATOS.KAI.EFWNHSEN.TON.IHSOUN
KAI.EIPEN.AUTW.SU.EI.O.BASILEUS.TWN.IOU
DAIWN.APEKRIQH.IHSOUS.APO.SEAUTOU.SU
In the papyrus P90 dated 150 CE which contains the verses of John 18:36-19:7, the name of Jesus is this time shortened into JS according to the process of nomina sacra, like the word Kurios (Lord) which is written KS. So, when the sacred name was absent the word ‘Lord’ had to be written without abbreviation. For example, in this codex the verse of John 12:38 have appeared:
INA.O.LOGOS.HSAIOU.TOU.PROFHTOU.PLHRW
QH.ON.EIPEN.KURIE.TIS.EPISTEUSEN.TH.AKOH
HMWN.KAI.O.BRACIWN.KURIOU.TINI.APEKALU
However this part of the gospel of John quoted a verse from the book of Isaiah and in all the Septuagints of this period (before 150 CE) there are none with the name Kurios (Lord) instead of the Tetragram. For example:
INA.O.LOGOS.HSAIOU.TOU.PROFHTOU.PLHRW
QH.ON.EIPEN
.TIS.EPISTEUSEN.TH.AKOH
HMWN.KAI.O.BRACIWN..TINI.APEKALU
There are only two ways to explain this modification, where the Tetragram was exchanged by the word ‘Lord’. Either the Christians changed this name after 150 CE(more exactly between 70 and 135) because they did not understand it anymore, or they changed it before 150 CE(more exactly before the previous period) for theological reasons but without there being any archaeological witnesses. The first explanation seems more logical because if the Christians (Judeo-Christians) had changed this name during the first century (before 70 CE) this teaching would have been seen in the NT especially among a Jewish environment, what is never the case. For example, Jesus should have said «I have made you known to them under your new name ‘Lord’» but as a Jew he said nothing new on this very important matter (John 17:6, 26). It should be remembered that the book of John (who was a Jew) was written around 98 CE and he kept the short name Yah rather than Lord in his book of Revelation (Rv 19:1-6) when he wrote the Hebrew word Allelu-ia instead of Allelu-adonai. Even in 129 CE, Aquila who was a Christian converted to Judaism kept in his translation of the Septuagint the Tetragram embedded in a Greek text. It is interesting to note that Rabbi Tarphon (Shabbat 116a), between 90 and 130 CE, related the problem of the destruction of heretical (Christian) texts that contained the Tetragram.
Dan Jaffé, a Jewish scholar (Ph.D at Bar-Ilan University, teaching at the present time at the Institut d'études et de culture juives of Aix-en-Provence), published a new study entitled le judaïsme et l'avénement du christianisme (Cerf, 2005). In his chapter about the books of minim he explained that the Hebrew name guilyonim came from the Greek word euaggelion "Gospel". The Gospel was used by the Christians from Jewish origin, called Judeo-Christians. Professor Jaffé published several new old Jewish manuscripts (Tosefta Sabbath XIII,5; Sifre Nasso 16; Sabbath XVI,1,15c in the Talmud of Jerusalem; Korah 1 in the Midrash Tanhuma; Sabbath 116a in the Babylonian Talmud) which were not censored by catholic authorities. It clearly appears according to these manuscripts that the name of God was written in the Gospel.
Thus, between 70 and 135 CE, the Christian copyists (most of them were heathens who had become Christians, furthermore they were strongly influenced by some antic Trinitarian philosophies, see http://www.socinian.org/Numenius2.html) simplified the ‘strange’ writing YHWH [KURIOU] into a ‘sacred name’
, consequently
the expression KURIOS YHWH [O THEOS] became 
o 
, and KURIOU
IESOU XRISTOU became in the same way 
.
In time, many other sacred names appeared. However, Symmachus still used
the Tetragram written in Paleo-Hebrew in his Greek translation (165 CE),
and according to Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History VI:17), he was
an Ebionite, that is a Judeo-Christian, who also wrote a comment on the
book of Matthew.
The replacement of YHWH may explain the inexplicable number of errors leading to confusion between the terms ‘Lord’ and ‘God’ in the Gospel. As we have seen, the expression Kurios YHWH posed a difficult problem for the translators of the Septuagint. This expression is much rarer in the Gospels; on the other hand, the title ‘Lord’ (Kurios) is frequently applied to Jesus, which could lead to confusion with the other ‘Lord’, the translation of YHWH. So, some copyists, to avoid this confusion, preferred to translate YHWH by ‘God’ (Theos) or simply to omit this name, as noted in the following passages: Lk 1:68; Ac 2:17; 6:7; 7:37; 10:33; 12:24; 13:5,44,48; 15:40; 19:20; 20:28; Rm 14:4; Col 3:13,16; 2 Tm 2:14; Jm 3:9; Jude 5; Rv 18:8. The list of variants is considerable for these few verses. Why did translators stumbled over the reading or understanding of such simple and well known words as ‘God’ and ‘Lord’? Some specialists admit that several times ‘Lord’ or ‘God’ took the place of YHWH. These replacements were done early, since after the second century of our era no more traces of the writing and pronunciation of the Name are found, except among a few Christian scholars. Paradoxically, a Christian reader might even believe that the God of the Bible was called Sabaôth, because this name is found in the expression Lord Sabaôth (KurioV SabawJ) in Romans 9:29 and in James 5:4.
Finally those who would like to keep the Jewish tradition, which appeared only from the third century BCE, by replacing the divine name with YHWH (not pronounced) should act in the same way with the name of Jesus replacing it with JS as was done during the three first centuries of Christianity!